Federal 'gunwalking' operation called a failureATF agents say supervisors told them to do nothing as Mexico-bound weapons were loaded into traffickers' cars

DAN FREEDMAN, Copyright 2011 Houston Chronicle |
June 15, 2011

WASHINGTON — Three federal firearms agents told lawmakers Wednesday their supervisors in Phoenix prevented them from breaking up Mexico-bound gun purchases in Arizona so that the weapons could instead be tracked as they moved to those higher up in the drug cartels.

The strategy of "gunwalking," as the investigative technique is known, was at the heart of the ATF Phoenix office's Operation Fast and Furious. It was aimed at reeling in major gun-smuggling players who employ "straw" purchasers to buy high-powered weaponry at gun stores in Arizona, Texas and elsewhere in the Southwest.

But agents lost track of the guns as they were handed off from purchaser to middleman to trafficker. As a result, the up to 2,500 weapons that could have been intercepted were instead smuggled into Mexico.

Two of the guns, both AK-47s, were recovered at the site in Southern Arizona where smugglers killed Border Patrol agent Brian Terry last December.

U.S. guns in Mexico

"ATF is supposed to stop criminals from trafficking guns to Mexican drug cartels," said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who appeared as a hearing witness.

"Instead, ATF made it easier for alleged cartel middlemen to . . . buy hundreds and hundreds of weapons. Agents warned that inaction could lead to tragedy, but management didn't want to listen."

The controversy over Operation Fast and Furious is a part of a proxy war over gun laws and gun control, as well as whether U.S.-purchased guns winding up in Mexico represent a significant problem.

Gun-rights advocates, many of them in Texas, argue that the Fast and Furious case shows that most, if not all, U.S. weapons purchases were within ATF's power to prevent. Most weapons in Mexico come from Central America or are sold to traffickers by corrupt Mexican law enforcement, they claim.

Gun-control advocates, on the other hand, focus on the documented cases of weapons purchased in the U.S. that wind up in Mexico.

The Feinstein ban

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., issued a report Monday along with Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., that cited ATF data showing 70 percent of guns seized in Mexico in 2009 and 2010 were manufactured in the U.S. or imported into the U.S.

The report called for re-enactment of Feinstein's assault-weapons ban, which expired in 2004, and a requirement that gun dealers report multiple sales of military-type rifles.

At the hearing, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., called for a separate hearing to examine whether current gun laws are adequate to stem the Mexico-bound gun flow.

Issa released emails showing that ATF senior officials, including acting director Kenneth Melson, were intimately involved in monitoring Operation Fast and Furious in its early stages last year.

He also upbraided the lone Justice Department official at the hearing, Ronald Weich, telling him "you should be ashamed of yourself" for stonewalling the committee's document requests about what Justice Department officials knew about the operation and when they knew it.

At another point, Issa hectored Weich on who at DOJ authorized the operation. "Do you know? Do you know?"

Weich responded, "The answer is I do not know," and that the Justice Department inspector general is investigating.

Robert Heyer, a cousin of the slain Border Patrol agent, Brian Terry, said in emotionally charged testimony that if any government official "made a wrong decision," they should "admit error and take responsibility."

The three ATF agents testified that, at times, they watched purchasers carry away loads of weapons and put them into traffickers' cars only to have supervisors tell them to do nothing. When agents protested, ATF agent John Dodson said, "We were told that we simply didn't understand the plan."

'A blatant lie'

A former N.Y. police detective, Forcelli said, "To walk a single gun is, in my opinion, an idiotic move."

Forcelli recalled watching his boss, Phoenix ATF special agent-in-charge William Newell, say "hell no" to a news conference question last March on whether the ATF had allowed guns to be smuggled to Mexico. "I was appalled because it was a blatant lie," Forcelli said.